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GNU Make vs Jenkins comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

GNU Make
Ranking in Build Automation
17th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Jenkins
Ranking in Build Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GNU Make is 1.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 9.1%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Jenkins9.1%
GNU Make1.9%
Other89.0%
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

JC
Software Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Enhances productivity with efficient dependency handling and a straightforward setup
GNU Make is used as a build system tool. Most people don't use GNU Make directly but utilize other systems like CMake to generate Make files, which are then run by GNU Make. This is common for tasks like compiling C++ code. In the industry, AI developers, for example, use GNU Make in their work…
JI
Principal Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Efficient resource allocation and robust workflow with autoscaling capabilities
In Kubernetes, we use node-based architecture with nodes and pods and follow practices like RBAC and rollback. Multiple pods can run concurrently. We benefit from Kubernetes' ability to autoscale pods and use horizontal pod autoscalers to adjust the number of pods based on metrics like CPU or memory usage, ensuring efficient resource allocation and stability under load.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Full-featured syntax allows building strategies as simple or as complex as one wishes, and declarative approach fits the task really well. Wide adoption also means that everybody knows what GNU Make is and how to use it."
"The initial setup of GNU Make is straightforward."
"Setup is extremely straightforward."
"Make tool, originally made for the GNU operating system, helps in the generation of executable from the main program source files."
"One of the best things about GNU Make is that, it is available on almost all Linux platforms."
"Makefiles are extremely easy to work with using any preferred editor. GNU Make can be run directly from the terminal, not requiring any time wasted on clicking."
"I think this product has all you need."
"GNU Make is such an essential tool that it is almost impossible to imagine working without it. Not having it, developers would probably have to resort to doing everything manually or via shell scripts."
"Having builds and test tasks triggered on commit helps not to break the product."
"In my opinion, this is the best open source solution for CI and CD."
"The most valuable feature of Jenkins is its continuous deployment, and we can deploy to multi-cluster and multi-regions in the cloud."
"Jenkins Job DSL plugin was a game changer for me personally."
"Automation in general has been improved."
"The most valuable features of Jenkins are its ease of use and good plugins available, and you are able to connect to a lot of solutions."
"With Jenkins, the pipeline will take your code from any versioning system like GitHub or Bitbucket, all the security scans can happen in one go and then all the tests also get run, and you can just build one container in it and deploy it."
"I can install Jenkins for integration from multiple developers and automate application delivery, staging, and production environments."
 

Cons

"Make’s reliability is very poor and is not suitable for larger or incremental builds."
"GNU make is a bad candidate for builds that require incremental builds often, as it does not support this feature."
"GNU Make requires using the Tab symbol as the first symbol of command line for execution. In some text editors this can be problematic, as they automatically insert spaces instead of tabs."
"Poor reliability for larger or incremental builds."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output. A wrapper named colormake exists to work around this, but native (opt-in) support would be welcome."
"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."
"Centralized user management would be helpful."
"The usability and user interface could be improved."
"We would like to see the addition of mobile simulators support to this solution, as part of its open-source offering. We currently have to carry out manual testing for these platforms."
"There are some 13 commands that we cannot run for Jenkins."
"Provisioning of VMs during deployment."
"Jenkins takes a long time to create archive files."
"If I had to name something, I'd like to see more on the cloud, cloud integration, like to Amazon and Google."
"Jenkins could improve the integration with other platforms."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"GNU Make is free and open source software."
"There is no price for this product. No licensing. It’s open-source."
"Jenkins is not expensive and reasonably priced."
"Jenkins is a free open-source server."
"We are using the freeware version of Jenkins."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There is not a license required to use the solution because it is open-source."
"It is a free product."
"Jenkins is open-source, so it is free."
"Jenkins is a free solution, it is open source."
"The solution is one of the lowest costs compared to competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GNU Make?
GNU Make is a free solution that comes with Linux, which positively impacts operational costs by eliminating licensing fees.
What needs improvement with GNU Make?
I am not familiar enough with it to suggest any specific new features or areas for improvement. It occupies its niche well.
What is your primary use case for GNU Make?
GNU Make is used as a build system tool. Most people don't use GNU Make directly but utilize other systems like CMake to generate Make files, which are then run by GNU Make. This is common for task...
How does Tekton compare with Jenkins?
When you are evaluating tools for automating your own GitOps-based CI/CD workflow, it is important to keep your requirements and use cases in mind. Tekton deployment is complex and it is not very e...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jenkins?
Jenkins is used in many companies to save money, especially within R&D divisions, by avoiding the expenses of proprietary tools.
What needs improvement with Jenkins?
I do not have any notes for improvement.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Airial, Clarus Financial Technology, cubetutor, Metawidget, mysocio, namma, silverpeas, Sokkva, So Rave, tagzbox
Find out what your peers are saying about GNU Make vs. Jenkins and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.